India announces second round of auction for discovered small fields

India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas announced the second round of auction for exploration and production of 60 discovered small fields covering about 3,100 square metres of area.

The launch of the bids for round 2 is expected to start in June with the opening of the physical data room. Bidding is set to begin in July and close in September, while the contracts signing is marked for November 2018, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) shared with media at a roadshow in Dubai to drum up investors in India’s exploration and production projects.

India’s energy consumption growth is expected to increase 165 per cent from 2016 to 2040 according to BP’s Energy Outlook 2018. Along with rising demand, the country aims to cut oil imports by 10 per cent by 2022, making domestic production a priority.

This is being facilitated by an improved regulatory environment. New E&P licenses will fall under Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP), which has a new revenue sharing model with low graded royalty rates and single licence for all type of hydrocarbons among other facilities which lower the regulatory risk or burden.

“Government of India has taken several measures to overhaul policy framework encompassing the entire energy value chain to ensure energy security in India. HELP, DSF are some of the progressive measures aimed at facilitating investments in the E&P sector,” said Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas said.

The second round of bidding offers 26 contract areas – 15 onshore and 11 offshore in shallow waters. These are spread over 8 sedimentary basins which have an estimate of combined hydrocarbons in place of over 195 million metric tonnes of or 1.4 billion barrels, according to DGH.

“Incremental demand for energy will majorly come from India as our oil and gas demand is expected to increase nearly thrice from 229 MMT currently to 607 MMT in 2040. India therefore is the most viable and reliable market for energy in the near future,” Pradhan said.

The national data depository has 1.76 million linear kilometres of 2D seismic data, 0.65 million square kilometres of 3D seismic data and more than 13,981 well logs.